The Fog of Forgetting (6 page)

“Let's get going before anyone notices,” he said, helping Teddy with his life jacket.

They steered away from Summerledge and out the Western Way, a broad channel carved by glaciers between Fells Harbor and the neighboring islands. Wispy clouds laddered the blue sky. The wind was chilly coming off the water, despite the sun overhead.

“Where do you want to go?” asked Chase.

Knox's answer was to push the throttle forward.

Chase looked back to shore at Summerledge and the silhouette of the Dellemere cottage as they passed it, and then the gentle arc of the harbor to the right. Captain Nate's dock nosed out at the center like an arm; his lobster boat, the
Mary Louise
, floated quietly on her mooring. He caught a shudder of movement on Captain Nate's dock, out of the corner of his eye, and called out to Knox.

“I think someone saw us leave—maybe Captain Nate!”

Knox scowled. “So what? He probably thinks we're out with Mom and Dad.” He pointed the bow toward open sea. The boat sped across the light chop.

“LET'S GO BACK!” Chase shouted over the wind.

“NO!” Knox yelled back, his eyes flashing. “This is fun! Hey, Evelyn, Frankie—you guys having fun?”

Evelyn turned to face them. She was beaming.

Chase sat down in the stern. Knox laughed and pushed the throttle forward again. He was clearly feeling good.

“We'll just go for a spin,” he yelled over his shoulder.

Chase didn't fully catch on until Knox pulled into the cove at Big Duck.

“Aw, Knox. Come ON!”

“Who's up for a swim?” asked Knox, ignoring him.

“I am!” said Teddy

“Me too,” said Frankie.

“Me three, I guess,” shrugged Evelyn. “But I think you all are crazy to swim in water this cold.”

“How 'bout you, Chasey?” Knox challenged. “Are you ready for this—or do you still want to be a good little boy and head home?”

Blood rushed to Chase's face. He felt everyone's eyes on him, especially Evelyn's. Why did Knox always have to be such a show-off? He acted as if everything was a competition and somewhere some giant, invisible scoreboard was keeping track of his wins. It was so irritating—and stupid, since most of the time nobody but Knox cared. Most of the time, Chase wasn't even
playing
. But not this time. This time, he'd show Evelyn who could be more fun.

“Grab the anchor,” he said.

Chase was dreaming again:
that
dream. The nameless body floated face down in the water; a halo of brown hair undulating like kelp around the head, its orange life-jacket bulging like a misshapen pumpkin. The waves pulsed. And just like before, the body began to roll. This time, he saw a flash of pale skin through the wet strands of hair. One more swell and he would be able to see the whole face. His heart constricted with fear. The swell rose–

“Chase, wake up!” Knox's voice yanked him back into consciousness.

Chase sat up and blinked hard, trying to clear the sick feeling left over from the dream. He gave a quick, relieved look around the boat. Frankie lay on the bow, shivering. Evelyn and Teddy were huddled with their knees under their shirts. Knox was at the console, restlessly fiddling with an antenna. Loose, hazy clouds scudded overhead, and parts of the shoreline were now in shadow. The wind was blowing onshore. Chase estimated they'd been swimming in the cove for about an hour before he'd dozed off.

“Time to go?” asked Knox.

“Whatever,” Chase replied, trying to sound breezy. He wasn't about to let Knox know how much he wanted to get back on dry land.

“Okay, then, let's go.” Knox turned on the ignition and revved the engine. “Wanna drive?”

Chase considered his brother through his bangs for a moment, looking for signs of mockery, but there weren't any. Knox was being serious–for once.

“Yeah, okay,” Chase answered, and took the wheel.

Knox hauled up the anchor. Chase gently eased the throttle forward. The boat puttered its way past the spits of granite, out of the cove. When they hit open water, Chase's heart sank and the sick feeling came back twice as hard. A wide bank of fog sat on the horizon to the east. Fingers of mist were twining into the crevices between the islands, heading straight toward them. The fog was moving in—slowly—but with purpose.

“You're going to have to gun it,” cried Knox.

“I know!” Chase snapped. The beast stirred in his chest and his lungs constricted in a spasm. He fumbled around his T-shirt for his inhaler, but it was gone—cord and all. He groped wildy around the console to see if it had dropped somewhere, but it wasn't there. Chase gulped in air, trying to inflate his lungs. His eyes strayed to the wall of mist closing in on his right, and then to Evelyn, Frankie, and Teddy in the bow. The dream replayed in his mind: the floating body turning slowly over as a wave surged beneath it. Was it one of them? Chase forced himself to look away, over the water and toward the mainland, where patches of sunshine still could lead them home. Fog was trouble; but if they went full speed, they might outrun it–and his asthma. He leaned hard on the throttle.

They had to outrun it.

T
he sound of waves splashing against the silent hull of the boat woke Evelyn first. She rubbed her eyes and sat upright, struggling to see through the heavy mist. Frankie lay crumpled on the deck of the boat, her head wedged against the seat, Teddy beside her. Chase was slumped across the wheel and Knox lay sideways across the aft bench, nestled amidst a pile of extra life preservers. She slowly made her way around the boat to see if everyone was still breathing. Satisfied that they were, she moved a life preserver out of the way and sat down next to Knox to think. She waved her hands, fanning at the fog in front of her face, but it was hopeless. She couldn't see a thing. Another swell slapped up against the hull. Her heart gave a panicked little leap. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Then she realized why. No engine.

“Knox!” she yelled, shaking his shoulder. Her voice was strange and high-pitched to her own ears. “Wake up!”

He didn't move.

She shook him harder. “Wake up! Guys! We're drifting!” She yanked one of the life jackets supporting Knox's head out from beneath him. His forehead slammed into the hard wood of the bench. “Get up, Knox!”

“Ten more minutes … lemme sleep ten more minutes,” he murmured. His face was lined with deep impressions from the webbing of the life jacket.

Evelyn whacked him on the head.

“No! You and Chase have to wake up! We're in the fog and the boat isn't working.” She watched as his awareness swam slowly to the surface. The moment it broke through, Knox's eyes flew open. He stood up shakily.

“Where are we?”

“How should I know? We all fell asleep or got knocked out or something, and now the engine's stopped!”

Knox took two steps over to the console and tried to wake up Chase with a shove; then he felt for the key.

“That's weird,” he muttered. “The ignition is still on but the engine isn't working. There must be a break in the line somewhere.” He groped blindly along the console. The fog swirled around the bow and thickened.

“Evelyn!” he shouted, and pointed at the bow. “Get up there and watch for rocks!”

Evelyn looked confused.

Knox stumbled to the side and grabbed the boat hook that was stowed under the gunwale. “Here, take this—you can fend off with it—just in case.”

Chase was slowly resurfacing now, his shoulders rising as his breath deepened. He looked around groggily.

“What's up?”

“
Fog
, Chase, and there's something wrong with the engine line.”

Chase shook his head to clear it. He was struggling with the same fuzzy blankness Knox and Evelyn had both experienced, like swimming through yogurt.

“Chase—do something–NOW!” cried Knox.

Chase stood up. The fog seemed to have lifted slightly, but it was still impossible to see beyond a few feet. A breeze blew at his back. Beneath him, the boat rocked gently, and what little water he could see was pitch black. He couldn't hear much of anything, strangely—no foghorns or gulls—but as he started to really wake up, he understood: They had to get moving. At this rate they would either drift out to sea or flounder on a ledge, and, he groaned inwardly, they had Teddy on board! How could he have been so stupid?

Recriminations rose in Chase's chest. He wanted to yell at Knox but there wasn't time. He knew from all the stories he'd been told about the fog that it was stealthy, dangerous; it sucked you in and kept you traveling in circles. They could be lost in it for days if they didn't run aground first. They had no food or water, no warm clothing. They wouldn't last days.

Chase moved to the engine and started fiddling with the gas pump. He felt the gas tanks. They were two-thirds full. He lifted the plastic cover off the engine and was looking for loose wires when he heard a shout. It was Evelyn.

“Something's out there!” she yelled. “I see a shadow—it's darker over there. I think we're near shore!”

Knox scrambled to the bow. Frankie and Teddy were stirring. Evelyn lay sprawled on her stomach, holding the boat hook in front of the bow. Goose bumps on her legs stood out from cold, or fear, or both.

“Do you see it?” she panted.

They could just make out a shift in the fog, a bluish arm of darker fog, maybe a quarter of a mile away. It was hard to tell. Knox stared closely at the water boiling around the bow. The wind was picking up, blowing them onshore, but even so, their speed was too great, too purposeful to just be drifting. A strong current tugged them into the dark pocket, reeling them in like a fish on a line.

“Chase, we have a serious problem!” he shouted, sprinting back to the console and cranking the ignition again and again.

Chase looked helplessly between the engine and the ominous shadow getting larger by the second.

“Everyone, put on a life jacket!” he ordered, and pulled an orange life vest over his head.

“Chathe?” Teddy's small voice quavered through the fog.

Chase's fear was churning wildly now. He took a deep breath to calm himself—surprised that the beast in his chest was sleeping. There was no time to consider why. He exhaled and a mental image of Captain Nate floated in his mind's eye. He almost laughed out loud in relief. Captain Nate had seen them leave! The
Mary Louise
was probably out looking for them now. And nobody could get through fog like Captain Nate. They just had to hold on until they were rescued. The question was, hold on to what?

“We're speeding up!” Knox yelled.

Chase put his hand into the water and felt the strong pull against his palm. He considered trying to row the boat out of the current, but a quick glance around told him they'd left the oars in the dinghy on the mooring. A careless mistake. He squinted through the mist. What had been a shadow was solidifying into a massive, rutted cliff rising up a hundred feet or more—higher than they could see, and approaching incredibly fast. The surf pounded against it, shooting spray, and the boat heaved up and down on the swells. Several large, black holes along the bottom edge of the cliff sucked in great blasts of seawater. Chase's bubble of hope deflated. There was no time to be rescued. They were fish bait. He made his way over to Teddy and piled extra life preservers around him to protect him from the impact. Chase huddled beside him, bracing himself as best he could. The boat heaved and a rain of sea spray pelted their faces.

“I'm so sorry, Ted,” he gulped.

Teddy looked up at him, wide-eyed with fear.

Chase looped a hand into the belt of Teddy's life jacket, trying to force the images from his dream out of his head. The boat surged forward toward the wall of rock with a sickening jolt. Waves smashed over the bow. Knox scrambled to hold on to the metal railing as freezing cold water rained down on him. Evelyn and Frankie clung to each other, heads bent, huddled on the deck. The fog thickened. The sound of water churning against jagged rock filled the air.

We're all dead
, thought Chase.
Just like Uncle Edward
. He shut his eyes. He didn't want to see what happened next.

“Chase!” Knox shouted. “Look!”

Chase raised his head and squinted through the mist. It took him a moment, but then he spotted it, too, shimmering like a mirage: a string of what looked to be white lights, evenly spaced, meandering along a deep indentation in the cliffs. Lights! Lights meant people!

The wind dropped, then suddenly shifted direction, blowing them offshore and ever-so-slightly away from the cliff. The fog lifted enough to reveal a shallow beach between two large outposts of rock.

“Listen!” Evelyn called out. The surf was quieting, the crashing and pounding becoming more rhythmic and gentle.

“Maybe we've hit the tide right,” yelled Chase, thinking about the moment when the tide turned over and the currents were still. The locals in Fells Harbor called it Neptune's Nap; it only lasted a minute or two, but it might be long enough for them to scramble out of the boat and onto dry land. His eyes quickly roamed the beach, looking for any signs of life.

The cliff loomed above them to the left, and the black holes at eye level continued to suck in water, pulling them closer; but, curiously, the boat now seemed to be resisting. It bucked and shimmied violently against the current.

“Something
reeaallly
strange is happening!” Knox yelled. The boat lurched again and swerved, tacking right.

“We're headed straight for the beach!” cried Evelyn, amazed.

Chase stood up, perplexed. It was true: The same current that had them on a collision course was now steering them alongside the foot of the cliff, almost as if it sensed their danger.
But that's impossible
, Chase thought to himself.

Possible or not, in minutes, they found themselves within a foot of a beach covered with smooth rocks glowing white in the gray mist.

Knox jumped out with the bowline, whooping with relief. The others followed and a sense of lightness took the place of the fear.

Teddy picked up one of the large, shining rocks.

“Look! A dinothaur egg!” he cried. He whacked it against another rock, trying to crack it.

“No! Teddy, don't!” said Evelyn.

Chase understood. For some reason it felt wrong to abuse these rocks. They looked tender, if a rock could be such a thing.

“What should we do with the boat?” asked Knox.

“Let's drag it up as far as we can and then tie the line around a rock or something,” said Chase, thinking of how they stored the dinghy back home.

They pulled the boat clear of the tide by a few feet and sat down.

“What about those?” asked Frankie. She pointed to the outline of white lights. “It looks like a path. Somebody must live here.”

Evelyn craned her head forward, examining the lights.

“Frankie's right; let's see if we can find them.”

Chase's thoughts jumped one on top of the other in rapid fire, weighing their options: They could sit on the beach and wait for the fog to clear. They could separate, leaving one group on the beach to watch the boat and one to explore. Or they could all go up the path. There must be electricity and people here if there were lights, and a telephone, maybe even a restaurant or a market. They hadn't eaten since breakfast. He eyed the path: Evelyn was right, they should go look for help … but something was stopping him from leaving the beach. A dark, inky feeling.

“I think we should stay here.”

“Chase,” Evelyn countered in a measured tone. “We have no idea how big this island is. It might be small, maybe even walkable. I think we should try to see what's up there.”

Knox grinned. “I'm ready.”

“We should stay with the boat,” argued Chase.

Evelyn's eyes flashed. “I don't need your permission!”

Knox chimed in. “Yeah, Chase, you're not the boss of us.”

Chase crossed his arms over his chest. “If Evelyn wants to go, I can't stop her, but I'm your older brother, and what I say goes when it comes to you and Teddy.”

“Says who?” challenged Knox.

“Says Mom and Dad.”

“They're not here, and last time I looked I think it was
you
who needed
my
help.” Knox puffed out his chest in the way that meant he was looking for a fight.

“I'm not fighting you, Knox,” Chase growled.

“Yeah, that's not really what you do, is it, Chase?” Knox pointed to the bruise on his face, or, more accurately, where the bruise once was, since it now appeared totally, mysteriously, healed.

“You are such a pain,” said Chase, trying to shut down any further argument.

“Yeah, well at least I'm not a wuss. What's the matter, Chase? Afraid some of your JV soccer friends are hiding up there?” taunted Knox.

Chase lunged at his brother, knocking him to the ground.

“You're gonna get it now, Knox! You and your
C'mon, it'll be fine.”

Knox grunted with the impact and grabbed a chunk of Chase's hair.

“Why don't you start gagging and choking now and calling for Mom? Poor Chasey-Wasey and his widdle asthma!”

Knox flipped Chase off him, pinning him down—but not for long. Before Knox knew it, he was on the bottom again. They flailed around on the rocks, rolling back and forth. Frankie marched past the two wrestling boys, hands on her hips.

“Why do boys always fight? It is so boring.”

“Shall we go then, Franks?” asked Evelyn.

Frankie nodded.

“We'll see you later,” Evelyn called over her shoulder, heading for the path.

Chase and Knox stopped, mid-fight, and watched them go. Soon the girls' heads were barely visible over the frown of the cliff.

“It doesn't change anything, you know,” Chase grunted. “It's your stupid fault we're lost in the first place. You're such an idiot.”

Knox's face fell. He pushed Chase off and pulled his knees to his chin. Chase got back into the boat and rooted around the console, coming up with a small, portable horn and a radio. Teddy took the horn. Chase sat with the radio, trying to get it to turn on. Knox chewed his collar, looking torn between following Evelyn and Frankie up the cliff and going back to thrashing Chase. Half an hour passed in total silence, disturbed only by occasional blasts from the horn.

“Chathe, Knoxth, look at me!” Teddy called out. He was wearing as many life preservers as he could fit over his head and around his middle. Knox exploded with laughter. Teddy laughed, too, then pointed past him, into the fog.

“Who'th that?”

A dark silhouette was threading its way toward them through the mist; it looked too big to be Frankie or Evelyn.

“Search me,” whispered Knox. “Who do you think it is?”

“Someone who lives here, genius,” snorted Chase.

The figure crooked his elbow and raised its hand hip height, hesitated, then lifted it and waved.